Exploring CES to Stimulus Mine for Disruptive Ideas
Doug is traveling this week to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to stimulus mine for disruptive “idea starters”. What he will not be looking for is WHAT companies are offering. Rather, he will be focused on the WHY & HOW of exhibitor...
True Front End & Back End – Drives Innovation Success
Yesterday I did a webinar for the P&G Alumni Association. It featured three P&G Alumni doing amazing things to help with COVID-19. John Milander - Respirator Invention - Andi Grudgeon - Face Shield Production - and myself for our work with...
2020 VS. 1986
2020 has me thinking on how things have changed in the 34 years since I founded the Eureka! Ranch.
In 1986 Consumer Products were the thought leaders of innovation and the focus was on creating line extensions, category segmentations and gurus.
In 2020 the thought leaders are more varied with industrial, medical, CBD/THC, services, internet, artificial intelligence, and banking all focused on innovation.
TODAY there is a focus on BIGGER, BOLDER, PATENTABLE WOW Innovations.
Leaders are looking for meaningfully unique innovations that enable them to change the profitability of their industry and or their business model. It’s the time of Capital “I” Inventing instead of small “i” incremental changes.
TODAY there is an urgency for Systems for ACCELERATING Ideas to Market
Having focused on the “front end” of innovation – executives are frustrated with how long it takes to get ideas to market.
TODAY there is a NEW TREND TOWARDS ENABLING EMPLOYEE Innovation.
Leaders are tired of renting an “Innovation Guru.” They are asking for coaching, education and tools to enable their people to think faster, smarter and more innovatively. To support this we’ve rebuilt our curriculum and tools to work for all levels of employees through independent Apps or the companies existing LMS Platform.
“911 Emergency” Innovation Speed
Real life event last Thursday. It started with an early morning call with a client in Europe. She had an emergency need for ideas and Market Research Data Today.
Completed inventing session with another client at 1:00 pm.
During the drive to the Airport organized experts and testing resources.
2- 4:pm: Wrote Six Concepts with ideas and advice from Experts
4pm: Designed questionnaire using advanced Innovation Engineering Rapid Test System
4:15pm: Uploaded concepts for Testing
4:30pm: Test in the field and headed to gate to get on plane back to Cincinnati
7:30pm: Plane landed. Test is complete. Opened computer in car (someone else was driving) and reviewed test results from 400 base equivalent test. Outstanding scores. Started draft of report
8:15pm: Home. Hugged wife and enjoyed a Cocktail with her – mine was an Embassy made with our Old Dexter Whiskey 🙂
9:15pm: Finished final report
9:45pm: Emailed final report to client in Europe to review when she wakes up
6:00 am email from client – “WOW this is so helpful.” Client does meeting to present findings
All good
This my friends in what we mean when we say increased innovation speed and decreased risk
If you have an innovation, marketing, product concept and or testing emergency give us a call. 24/7 we can get it resolved.
IMPORTANTLY – this is not a random event – YOU CAN AQUIRE the SKILLS AND TOOLS to work at this speed all the time.
Giving Thanks for tastes & Smells
This morning as I exercised my mind wandered to a dear friend Scott Macaulay – who passed away from cancer way to soon. In his last year of life he spent time really noticing smells, tastes, sights and sounds. I remember him commenting on the aroma and flavor of a cocktail sauce we were putting on some fresh Prince Edward Island Oysters.
A Millenial in Athens Greece Opened my eyes this week
The past few days I’ve had the honor of speaking at the Singularity University event in Greece. Greece’s role in the creation of democracy is well known. It gave power to the people.
After one of my talks a young lady came up to me and said “I’m seeing a difference in your approach versus others. Most business people believe that company success comes when the workers engage. Your approach is to enable the workers to be successful with innovation and because the workers are successful the company is successful. The end purpose is the same but your method is the reverse.”
Her words were simple but so insightful. I suddenly made the connection to what Dr. Deming taught my father back in 1979 “94% of the problem is the system – 6% is the worker”.
Dr. Deming knew that the foundation of success lay in enabling the works. Today the Innovation Engineering movement enables workers with the training, tools and methods they need to think smarter, faster and more innovatively.
Dr. Deming and Innovation Engineering are about Democratizing thinking. Countries don’t invent. Companies don’t invent. Only the people can invent the kinds of smarter work systems, products and services that are needed to transform the success trajectory of companies.
This was especially top of mind for me as we are about to announce a transformational change in how we teach and enable employees to think smarter, faster and more innovatively. To learn more sign up for our 7th annual Global Innovation Engineering conference by clicking here
nothing beats being on the front lines
Nothing beats - seeing, feeling and experiencing on the front lines. If you are working on an innovation my advice is to make some, sell some and learn a ton! This past Saturday we opened our Brain Brew Distillery at the Eureka! Ranch just outside of...
It’s Important That Everyone Have Something Important to do
“It’s important that everyone have something important to do.”
Paul Schurke said this as we embarked on an adventure to recreate Admiral Peary’s Last Dash to the North Pole. As the expedition leader Paul explained that he didn’t want people on the trip who would take unreasonable risks because they had nothing to look forward to.
As is common with Paul there was also a deeper second meaning. Paul was speaking about the importance of having great aspirations. Paul dreams big and takes action on those dreams. Others feel exhausted by his energy – he fuels his soul with his adventures. My trip with him was in 1999 – if you CLICK HERE you can see how he never stops.
I was reminded of Paul today as I visited Bob Morrison and team at our new Brain Brew Custom WHISKeY distillery at the Windsor & Eton Brewery in Windsor just outside of London UK. (That’s Bob and I in our small but mighty first packaging facility at our new distillery) During 2019, the year I turned 60 – my team and I have opened a distillery at the Eureka! Ranch and soon in the UK. Today we make products that are in 40 of the 50 US states and we’ve won Double Gold Medals and 95 ratings for our WoodCraft whiskey spirits.
Paul Schurke – changes the world by changing people’s perceptions of themselves and the planet.
Our Brain Brew Crew changes the world by enabling whiskey to be of the people, by the people and for the people. Because frankly, everyone deserves their own WHISKeY! And just wait till you see what important things we have planned for 2020!
So what are you waiting for – as we say with Innovation Engineering – get up, get out and do Cool S#it that Matters!
Growing a Sustainable Culture of Innovation
Imagine a world where across your 10K person organization you had 1K people innovating in their sphere of influence. They were consciously thinking smarter, faster and more innovatively about their daily tasks.
Research is finding that if you ignite just 10% of your people – you set off unstoppable momentum towards culture change.
If you try to change the culture without first igniting the people – you will fail.
This approach was inspired by conversations with Kevin Cahill – Executive Director of the The W. Edwards Deming Institute. He spoke of the need for enabling everyone. He said, “I believe that every single person, in every single organization, has some sphere of influence they can impact.
Quite simply when you light up the innovators and early adopters across your organization with training, tools and support you set off a chain reaction of growth.
Dr. Deming famously would push executives with his famous challenge, “By What Method” will you accomplish this.
In our case we’re finding 3 things are key to the method of transformation:
Academically sound, reliable and reproducible education,
Tools that enable the TEACHING to be made real,
Activation & Reactivation of the training & tools till they become a cultural habit.
I’ll be talking more about this as we prepare to release a dramatic upgrade to our system for enabling leaders of teams, divisions, or companies to ignite a sustainable culture of innovation at the 7th Annual Digital Innovation Engineering conference being held on Friday, November 22, 2019 – MARK YOUR CALENDAR!
I’m Tired of Practical, Prudent and Puckered
I’m tried of incremental steps.
Doug Hall’s New Book!
Published January 2025 – We are living in a time of unprecedented change. The consequence is a never-ending stream of problems in our professional and personal lives. Today, we are facing dramatic drops in organizational engagement. Eureka! Ranch research finds that 44% of managers feel employee engagement is worse since Covid.
The study also found that the average manager wastes 3.5 hours a day reacting to flawed company work systems and employee mistakes. Interestingly 78% of this waste is from flawed company work systems. These include poor work instructions, flawed digital systems, ineffective communications and needless bureaucracy. Only 22% of wasted time is from employee mistakes.
In PROACTIVE Problem Solving Doug Hall details principles and processes for how you can create active engagement with those you are working with to solve and dissolve the problems you face. It’s a system that has been validated in both academic research and real world practice as being over 500% more effective than brainstorming. When you and your team are fully engaged a chain reduction of positives occur – from higher profitability, sales, customer loyalty to lower absenteeism, accidents, quality defects and turn over.